


Seriously, this isn't exactly Ghostbusters...

by Somecallmemichelle



Category: Mediator Series - Meg Cabot
Genre: Biblical References, Gen, Ghosts, References to Canon, Sarcasm, Spirits, ghostbusters - Freeform, mediator, references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 07:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8966791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somecallmemichelle/pseuds/Somecallmemichelle
Summary: Suzannah Simon (or just "Suze", to everyone but a few of her closest aqquaintances) has a secret...she can see ghosts, now she reveals that truth to the world.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the December 2016 prompt challenge of /r/fanfiction. Lovingly returned by Tafferling. Seeing as this text contains several references to canon, I've provided the entire list of references I made on the bottom Author's notes. Thank you for reading.

There’s this romanticized view of the world, about God, about whoever is picking us up. Ya know, that He may work in mysterious ways, we may not know what, or exactly, why, we are picken, but we are the right person for it.   
  
Hey, I’d agree, I’d really agree, if it weren’t for the fact that made me a social pariah - Brought upon a police cruiser home so many times I lost count - And that was in  New York, so ya know you got a problem when your classmates think it’s too much. Not to mention the looks I got. Yeah, what did I expect? Talking to thin air tends to do that. 

 

But still there were times where the job had its perks, well, I’m not saying that I’d have taken it if given the choice, but it had given me not only my rancher, turned spirit, turned medic, which treated me by “Mi hermosa” (and my heart beat every time I heard him stroke my soul with those smooth, deep, kind of hot in a 19th century way, voice, especially once I had gotten hold of a spanish to english dictionary and learned the meaning of the word “hermosa”), and I guess it was pretty satisfying to help those who needed find their final rest, put them at peace of spirit and mind...when they weren’t trying to kill you.   
  
Oh did I not mention that part? Spirits who stay tend to do it for either one of two reasons, one they left something behind, or are trying to protect their family, or, some other noble thing. Those I can work with, those I can do whatever I can to fulfill their desires, assure them I’ll take a look or help them.   
  
No, it’s the second type of spirit, ghost, I have a problem with. And they, funnily enough, seem to have a problem with me. Our kind can touch, did ya know? Now, obviously ghosts aren’t used to being touched after the whole….dead and buried, ,or dead and murdered, or dead and drowned, or dead...and you get the picture. If they stay behind...or knowing my luck  _ when _ they do, they won’t be able to touch any humans. Sure dogs can sense ‘em, so can cats, to an extent. But they’re completely invisible.

  
Which is why, I’d imagine, it gets to be frustrating. And since it’s my job to bring them over to the other side...which, I honestly don’t know what it has in it, all I’ve seen were doors and halls, like the world’s, herm, after world’s most foggiest and spirit filled waiting room, but since it is my job to…

 

Well here’s the thing, turns out most spirits have a thing in common, they think they died too young. Or their death was unfair. And while I may certainly agree in the case of some people (my rancher, certainly counts as a case, and my dead father, before he finally went to the other side…), I usually don’t care. After all, it’s not like I’m being a hardass, they must go to their rightful place, no?

 

Which is why, as if being socially shunned because of my odd behavior, wasn’t enough,  they try to kill me. Which, in a twisted kind of way, makes sense. They are already dead, they can’t die again, while me? Perfectly mortal. Just ready to be over and done with. Of course I can touch ‘em...they don’t need to manipulate the physical world to hit me, they can just choke me, or punch me down a second story window (yeah that happened, long story..).

 

Now, as much as my mum would desire otherwise, as she brought me private phone lines, and all kinds of clothes, (not that I’d say no to a pair of sweet jeans, or a shirt, like, if they’re on discount), that tends to...make a girl learn how to defend herself. I mean, I’ve known how to break windows to slide inside (it’s not the breaking that hurts, it’s pushing your arm outside, as a side note, don’t take what I say and go break random windows), buildings and how to climb. I have plenty of tools to aid the (oh do clearly…) weak female punches I give. 

  
They can be hurt, however temporarily, I guess they are so used to be able to take damage they show the damage I cause to them, before going “Oh yeah, I’m dead, this doesn’t affect me” and simply returning to normal and hitting back. Which is why I use those aids.   
  
Ever seen Buffy? Yeah, It’s sort of like that, but, funnily enough, it’s not like ghostbusters, where you can just suck them up. I mean, sure, you can exorcise them...even if my old partner in this, Father Dom, a priest, turned his nose at my brazilian voodoo what if method. Hey, portuguese is easier than latin, I mean, the catholic way works...but every nation has it’s own method of getting rid of messing spirits. Not to mention that buying chicken or goat blood (usually chicken, in bulk, for ‘cooking’, or so you claim) is easier than entering a church and still fall in the good graces of Him, if He does exist, so that you can perform the exorcism.

 

Yeah, I tear ghost spirits up, even if I sometimes fall occasionally. Why am I telling you this? Why would I tell anyone all this stuff, so that they might think ‘ok, this chick’s more loony than neely in that 60’s movie her mum loves to watch, or at least any of the  _ Lifetime  _ specials?”

 

Trust me, you wish I hadn’t, that your knowledge of spirits was null or nonexistent. Not that you’ll likely be aware of more than one, and that in it on himself is almost a null personality, but ya know how it is. You’ll wonder, and, if you just so happen to believe me. Well, unlike this certain mediator, you don’t have much of a chance to fight back.

 

And who are you going to call? I keep my number out of the yellow pages for a reason,  and if you have someone nearby who can see ‘em, odd as they might seem, good luck in  making them  admit such a thing.

 

It turns out, those who are likely to admit it and make a big deal out of it, are really, really faking it. I mean, if you really saw spirits, and you could touch them and so could they do the same for you, would you go and make them angry with a camera crew? Like, seriously. This always bothers me.   
  
...So let me answer, the question, why am I telling this to anybody, let alone you? Call it a backup plan. Just because, hey, why not? It’s not like I haven’t been close to being put in the system before, though that is usually as a criminal, and not as as “mentally unstable patient”.

 

I mean, it’s not like most ghosts see a locked door and think “ok, cool, sure, I’ll totally respect the lady’s privacy”. No that just doesn’t happen. And how would you describe how you got the escoriations and bruises? They’d think you were self hurting or something.   
  
It doesn’t really matter, just as I had ghosts tear statues’ heads of saints (well now they are saints, they weren’t when that happened) and throw them at me. And just like I have no idea of how many Virgin Mary’s I broke in cemeteries, or in churches, or in whatever, fighting...Because of course California (to where I moved) has a sizable Catholic population, and just  _ of course _ , most of those Mary representations may be heavy enough to keep you stuck if they fall on top of you, but fragile enough it shows up in the local news the day after for “vandalism”, and “religious hate crimes”...

 

I’m just saying for all that she is, a literal mother to a God, and partly Ghost, it seems, though maybe not, I never paid much attention to the Holy Ghost part of religious class, she seems surprisingly fragile. Like put a little bit of construction quality on the mother of God-son. No?

 

And this whole thing started with a bunny.

 

Ok...maybe it wasn’t a bunny, maybe it was a spirit, yeah, you know the part about animals not going to Heaven? Or Hell, or whatever? No spirit? I don’t know if that’s true...but that thing certanly seemed like a bunny to my 3 year old self.

  
The gray, smal thing, murmuring, and me, literally a toddler. I don’t think I could have helped even if I wanted. The spirit just asked for help, but hey, I might have been the only mediator in an area that served millions, that I knew of, at least. But even I wasn’t going to be able to help when all  I could utter was “toons?” and, more importantly. “Friends”, though I always ended up saying it as “Fwiends”.

 

So let’s just say that by the time I met the gatekeeper, possibly God, I don’t know, a type without any type of sense of humor, I was fed up, and if I hadn’t been on an important mission, I’d have asked for explanations.   
  
But having your soul sucked out of your body, by desire, and being told not to “follow the light” does that. Even if he stared at you, with the biggest of stares, and told you not to follow the light. Little hysterical giggles would come.

  
More in a “Wait, are you serious, that must be the stupidest, most cliché thing you could have said” that in a “Do I feel lucky? I’m just going to piss of the keeper between realms”, not that the dude (yeah, California, that wording would be bound to come up eventually) seemed to find it funny.

 

But yeah, I guess ‘people just believe what they want to believe, though it might be hard not to believe it, when you’ve got your air being cut out by a pair of ghostly hands.   
  
And since everyone brings up Ghostbusters, I’ll end with a reference to that.   
  
Are you afraid of a ghost? ...Because you should probably be.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> 1 - The "rancher" spirit, is Hector "Jesse" de Silva (or just Jesse), which is the romantic crush, Suse has throughout the original series. Jesse is a ghost but through several plot twists and events, he ends up recovering his body in the 21st century, and, since he has studied all advances in medicine for over 100 years, and the Catholic Church is good at "helping those without documents", he enters medical school.
> 
> 2 - Yes, ghosts can touch mediators, and vice versa, which kind of screws her up in several ocasions. Though, really she finds being able to hit back an useful tool. They can also regenerate after realising they shouldn't be able to suffer damage. 
> 
> 3 - The decapitation of the statue of a "saint" refers to an event in the first book, where a statue of Junipero Serra (which at the time wasn't really a saint, just a famous missionary, since the book was published in the early 2000's) is thrown at her. That doesn't work, but there are other things that do.
> 
> 4 - Spirits possess the ability to influence the physical realm as said, over the series this is used to cause storms, throw objects, break buildings, create ropes so they can directly try to choke someone...it's useful, considering they can't touch 99.99999 percent of the population.
> 
> 5 - The series takes place from early 2000's to about 2006, so I felt that, even if missed in the original series, a reference to Buffy was due. It also ties in with Meg Cabot's (the author), tendency to reference series and celebrities. Lifetime movies are a reference in the original series, though I called it up for the "specials", as to make more sense to this story. Lifetime is a tv channel in america which (according to what I can gather) tends to overdramatise "true stories", in sappy movies.
> 
> 6 - The "those who fake it on tv" part is brought up in the latest book, which was published almost 10 years after the previous one. It's an obvious dig at all those reality tvs who talk about Ghosts. Though in the book she does admit the value of it as a way to comfort the family.
> 
> 7 - Suze is also known as Susannah, though only three people refer to her that way, without her being annoyed. That is her real name. She really is tired of the eventual Ghostbuster references people would make.
> 
> 8 - The gatekeeper being a figure who tells her "not to follow the light", when she exorcises her body to reach the lands beyond. Or the after life. For reasons...in what is one of the tenser moments in the series. Since I had this prompt about "meeting God" and that was the closest figure in the series (aside from her attending a catholic school, and all the references to christianism as a result), I kind of made it into it. Though he is never alluded as that in the book. Everything else about the encounter is detailed faithfullly though.
> 
> 9 - The first time Suze saw a ghost she was either 2 or 3, a toddler, and she couldn't really help the figure, she doesn't remember the encounter too well, and though the figure is never described as a bunny, I choose to use it, in a harmless sort of way.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
